Daniel Cullen’s Stag started off strong but lost its spark as the story went on, and the ending didn’t provide the answers the audience would hope for, and honestly felt like an unsatisfying cliffhanger. I mean, if you’re thinking the series is like Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara or The Hangover, you would be disappointed. The story is about a guy named Stu, who, with his best friends, went to South America for his last big party of freedom before he gets married, but sadly, due to their own mess up, they end up in a notorious prison named El Puerco Negro. Now, the big question is, do they escape the prison? Let’s see what happened in the end from this explainer.
Spoilers Ahead
How did Stu and his friends land up in the prison?
When Stu and his friends went to South America for his bachelor party, everyone was pumped and ready to go wild with cocaine, beer – you name it. Along with their own group, a couple of other strangers joined the party, like a guy named Greg and a vet doctor named Clem, and they thought the more, the merrier. The problem was, they had no idea that Greg was smuggling cocaine-filled balloons in his stomach. Greg overdosed, and things went downhill fast. Therefore, when they all reached the airport for their flight back, they got busted at the checkpoint because of Greg’s stupidity. That’s how Stu and his friends ended up in the notorious El Puerco Negro prison – a nightmare none of them saw coming.
What happened to Ant?
Now, let me paint a picture of the prison for you. There weren’t really any walls, but that didn’t mean it was easy to escape, because the borders were filled with landmines, which made it far more dangerous. Inside the prison, you could find people of all ages, from 5-year-olds to 100-year-olds, who worked in the cocaine factory that operated inside. There was also a brutal organ trafficking business run by a brother-sister duo named Selma and Branco. And if that wasn’t bad enough, there was a beast called El Niño, basically a giant gorilla, that lived in a tunnel under the prison. It sometimes roamed outside its cage and feasted on the dead bodies in the prison. So naturally, when Stu and his friends entered the prison, they knew they would not survive, and they were even more terrified when they realized that because of their drug-smuggling charge, they were looking at 100 years in prison. Also, Greg was already weak from the overdose, and the fact that he was the reason they were all stuck in this hellhole made Stu’s friend Ryan furious. Therefore, in his anger, Ryan punched Greg in the gut, which caused internal bleeding and made things even worse. So, they searched for a doctor and stumbled upon the dark world of organ trafficking in the prison. They saw a man named Gaucho, who had crossed Selma and Branco in the past as he decided to escape the prison smuggling cocaine. The friends saw that he was being kept in ice-cold water to freeze his organs before they cut him up, and without knowing much about his background, Stu’s friend Ant hit the “doctor” there and set him free. That’s when they met Selma, who demanded $200,000 from them for Greg’s treatment, and if they couldn’t pay, they were all as good as dead. These guys barely had enough money to buy a chicken in the prison and they were literally selling off their shoes just to avoid starving, so you can imagine how bad their monetary situation was. But things got even worse when Branco showed up, furious because Ant had knocked out the doctor to help Gaucho escape before he could sell Gaucho’s organs as punishment. So to get back at them, Branco shot Ant in the head, and just like that, one of their friends was dead right in front of their eyes.
Why did Selma and Branco start fighting?
Selma and Branco were the brother-sister duo who seemed perfect on paper, but there was a big problem—Selma wanted to outsmart her brother as she was tired of working for him. Her prisoner, Gemma, had warned her about this before, and now a businessman she worked with also tried to warn her that Branco could outplay her, especially if he ever busted Selma for how she killed her own husband back in 2008 in Florida. That’s why Selma realized her brother was becoming a threat, so she wanted to get rid of him. To do that, she decided to use one of Stu’s friends, Hugo, by inviting him to sing at their mansion during a party the night of a big business deal, as her plan was to kill Branco by setting a landmine under his seat. But things went wrong at the party, as Branco’s lover, Davide, was also there, and before anything could happen, Davide accidentally sat in the chair meant for Branco. And that’s when the landmine went off, killing Davide on the spot. Hence, Branco quickly realized that his sister hadn’t been trying to kill their enemies—she wanted to kill him. This led to a gunfight between the two siblings inside the prison, which caused chaos, as if there wasn’t enough of that already.
Why did Ryan and Stu team up with Gaucho?
But guess what? It wasn’t just Greg who was trying to smuggle cocaine out of the country—Stu was in on it too, and he had been playing innocent the whole time. So, Stu managed to get hold of a phone in the prison, and called Guppy, the drug lord Greg and Stu worked for, as he hoped Guppy could arrange something to help them out. The problem was that Greg had realized that if he failed to smuggle drugs, it would put his family in danger, so he asked Stu to sacrifice himself, as his old mother would die soon anyway, but Stu had a wedding coming up and couldn’t risk his own life. In a panic, Stu pushed Greg’s face into the toilet, drowned him, and called Guppy for help. Guppy said he would call him back with a plan, but before Stu could share the good news with Greg, he realized Greg had died from choking on the toilet seat. Stu naturally panicked and had no choice but to dump Greg’s body down the toilet to cover up what he had done. The problem didn’t end there. Ryan, Kai, and Kai’s father, John, eventually found out that Stu had double-crossed them and realized they couldn’t trust him anymore. But their focus shifted when they discovered that Selma and Branco were fighting in the land mine field, hence the prison’s control room had shut down the minefield temporarily to keep them safe, which gave the prisoners a chance to run wild and try to escape. Actually Gaucho himself wanted to escape from the prison, and had tried to play the control room people like this. John and Kai ran as fast as they could, but just as they neared safety, the minefield was turned back on when the control room saw no sign of Branco or Selma. John accidentally stepped on a landmine, which killed him right in front of Kai. Kai couldn’t escape from the minefield either, and watched in horror as Ryan and Stu ran back inside the prison to find the tunnel to escape the prison and left Kai there. That’s when they decided to team up with Gaucho, as they realized he was a clever guy who’s played Branco before, managed to take away the phone from Stu, and even called Guppy himself to promise him that they would smuggle tons of cocaine out of the prison in exchange for help with their escape. Guppy agreed, and Ryan and Stu, with no better option, decided to trust Gaucho and start packing up cocaine to pull off their escape plan.
In Stag season 1’s ending, Selma had no choice but to get rid of her brother’s madness, and therefore she teamed up with two of her prisoners, Clem and Gemma, to escape through the tunnel. But, of course, neither of them trusted Selma actually, Gemma had once tried to be her friend, but Selma betrayed her and locked her up in prison for two years. Clem, who was a vet, had been used by Selma too when she tried to pass her off as a surgeon so Clem could perform liver surgery on the businessman for free. Now was their chance to turn the tables. They knew the beast El Niño lurked in the tunnel and the only way to get past him was for Selma to sing a special Spanish song that could calm him down. There was a rumor that El Niño only ate the dead, so they hoped that, somehow, they could get past him through this. So in the end, Selma did sing the song, but it didn’t show us if they made it out alive or not. As for Stu, Ryan, and Gaucho, the show doesn’t tell us for certain whether they survived or not, because It looked like Branco was even deadlier than the beast itself. We might have to wait until the next season for answers. For now, the audience can only guess that maybe both teams—Selma’s group and Stu’s—made it out through the tunnel and reached the coast. But it’s also possible that Branco caught up with all of them in the end. What he’ll do next would be interesting to watch, or maybe as disappointing as this ending, who knows?
